The most basic right of all: the right to live

I recently read Neil Nissenbaum’s Jan. 16 letter headlined, “Bible, churches lead the ‘war on women’” and was taken aback by some of the things he said.

Brandy Tully

To the editor:

I recently read Neil Nissenbaum’s Jan. 16 letter headlined, “Bible, churches lead the ‘war on women’” and was taken aback by some of the things he said.

He said miscarriages “greatly outnumber” legal abortions. Even if that was true, what does it matter? They are two different things. A miscarriage is, most of the time, caused by a chromosome problem and the child dies in the womb. In other words, it was an unsustainable life; whereas with abortions, the lives of viable people are being cut short. That is what murder is — the premeditated killing of one person by another.

Another difference is that while miscarriages are a hard loss for expectant parents, abortion becomes a guilt-ridden echo that, apart from God’s love, haunts many women. When you look at the suicide rate of women who’ve had abortions versus those who’ve had miscarriages, the rate is higher for those who’ve had abortions. What does that tell you?

No, an unfertilized egg or sperm is not a life. Once the pair meets, though, all the genetic make-up is there for a 100 percent human being and development begins immediately. I’m against the kind of birth control that keeps a fertilized egg, or zygote, from implanting in the mother’s uterus, thereby killing him or her with starvation.

There are some Christians who believe that you shouldn’t even prevent fertilization, but not all of us have been convinced of that. Some Christians are still misinformed about what most forms of birth control do to their offspring and still use them. Some Christians still have an abortion because they silence the truth in their hearts or they are misinformed and told it is “just a fetus.” But we all agree that one person intentionally killing another defenseless person is wrong. Science confirms that a human is a human when sperm and egg meet, no matter what scientific names we call him or her throughout their development.

We’re told abortion is our right as women. What about the rights of the baby? What about the rights of a father who may want to keep the child? The baby is his child too; but somehow everyone else’s rights mean nothing compared to the newly “empowered” woman. Alveda C. King said, “Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.”

Also, nowhere in the Bible does it say a woman is of less value than a man or vice versa. 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 says, “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.” The same thing is stated another way in Galatians 3:28.

I am for women’s rights, but not to the extreme of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and neither were most notable women’s rights contemporaries of their day, including Susan B. Anthony. They sought to distance themselves from her due to her radical book “The Woman’s Bible.” Stanton lost most of her influence with the public after that taboo because she was really attacking the integrity and goodness of God, just as Nissenbaum’s recent letter did.

I’m not sure what circumstances or people have influenced Nissenbaum to mistrust God, but I’m praying for him as I hope all of you other Christians will join me in doing. I hope he will see that while he may be for abortion, he was given his right to life and God allowed that for a great reason.